User blog comment:Theena/Is Sparda really dead?/@comment-775152-20120102220124/@comment-4720688-20120102223116

Well, as I said, perhaps he was trapped somewhere, maybe held captive for some reason, and could only get free after the attack that killed Eva and drove Vergil AWOL. Maybe someone or something triggered an alarm on the gate-seal (assuming Sparda set an alarm), and Sparda rushed out to check it out, and it turned out to be a trap. Maybe they wanted information on how to open the seal, and he was held and tortured for a few years.

As far as what Arkham said, with all his scheming double-talk, I personally take anything he said with a grain of salt, because he could just be twisting the truth to serve his own manipulative ends. Why he'd twist that particular bit I don't know, unless he was trying to influence Vergil, but then again, he wasn't there, what does he really know about Sparda's fate anyways? I think I think too much, but still...